EDWARD SNOWDEN: How To Make Sure The NSA Can't Read Your Email

businessinsider
Dylan Love

Article 12 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence."

It's that last one that's gotten everyone's attention lately. Just how private is your correspondence online?

Depending on your politics, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is either a vile turncoat or a revered hero, but either way he has advice on how to stay two steps ahead of the NSA.

He held an awesome "press conference" of sorts on The Guardian's website, taking written questions from readers and typing out his answers online.

We were most intrigued by his response to a question about encryption. If someone wants to stay off the NSA's radar, could he or she encrypt emails and send them without arousing any suspicion?

Snowden's response: "Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it."

A brief caveat before we dive in deeper with encryption. This whole "NSA domestic spying" news item is weird and scary, sure, but it has much more to do with the "connectivity matrix," or the relationship that exists between personal and commercial computers all around the world and the fact that the NSA can exploit it. Yes, your privacy matters, but the real issue raised here is that the NSA can basically use a "cheat code" to become all-powerful in the internet "video game."

That said, it's useful to know how to effectively encrypt your email. Let's talk about PGP encryption, one of the most popular ways of doing so.

PGP stands for "Pretty Good Privacy." It uses two "keys," one publicly viewable to the world, the other kept solely to yourself. You can generate PGP keys to your heart's content using the free tool at iGolder and a number of other services around the web.

Here's a sample public key:

Screenshot

This looks like a random string of numbers and letters to you, but to a computer, it's a set of instructions on how to properly encode a message. But this is only half of the recipe, because for every public key freely available to the world, there's a private key that the recipient keeps locked away.

Here's the private key that's tied to the public key above:

Screenshot

It's pretty much the same story here – random nonsense characters. But your computer looks at this and sees the instructions on how to properly decode any messages that were encoded using the public key above.

If we want to send the message "Hello world." to a recipient using our example public key, we use an encryption tool (also freely available at iGolder and elsewhere around the web). Copy and paste the recipient's public key into the appropriate box, then type out your message as you normally would.

Screenshot

The last step is easy. Just click on "Encrypt Message" and it spits out your very unreadable secret email:

Screenshot

Then copy and paste this into a new email and press send:

Screenshot

You've officially unleashed an encrypted message into the world. Since it looks like a bunch of nonsense, it contains no keywords that could trigger any alarms at the NSA. And if the message should somehow be intercepted, no one would have the first idea what to do with it.

Think of PGP encryption like a Star Trek transporter. Instead of disassembling a human being's atoms and reassembling them elsewhere, we're breaking down written language, emailing the "junk," and then having the recipient turn the junk into a readable email using his private key.

Nico Sell is the founder of Wickr, a mobile security app that boasts a slew of features like "self-destructing" messages that disappear after a preset amount of time. Its greatest strength (other than its "military-grade encryption") is how user-friendly it is. By bringing this PGP-style encryption method to your phone as a non-threatening and intuitive app, Wickr might just be the ticket to a world where even your technophobic uncle is sending you encoded emails.

Sell told Business Insider that both her three-year-old son and 70-year-old mother use Wickr all the time.

How well does PGP work? Well enough that it's been actively used since it was introduced in 1991, making for 22 years of active privacy-protecting service. And in internet time, this makes PGP a grizzled but fearsome veteran. Just take it from Sell, who told us: "When it comes to email, PGP's about as good as it gets."

Let's revisit the last half of Snowden's comment. He said: "endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it."

While "endpoint security" encompasses a lot of different ideas – everything from using strong unguessable passwords to setting up a firewall – we presume that Snowden is referring to the potential for someone to gain hardware-level access to your computer.

You've seen this happen before in cheesy thriller movies. A hacker sits down at a computer, whacks a few keys, and someone else's desktop appears on the minitor. The hacker reclines in his chair and watches everything this faraway other person does on his computer, every word typed, every website visited.

While we strongly doubt it's that casual, it's far from impossible and the NSA would be just the organization to gain hardware-level access to someone's computer. An uninvited guest watching you go about your business online would obviously be troublesome for anyone, but people who make heavy use of PGP encryption have their own set of worries here – what good is an encrypted message when someone watches you type it out in plaintext ahead of time?

We assume that authorities would only monitor someone's computer on the hardware level if that person made his way onto a watch list by engaging in suspicious behavior. So for the Regular Joes out there, PGP is a really solid bet on making sure that your sensitive message arrives safely to the intended recipient.

Anyone who'd like to give this a shot is welcome to email me using my own public key here.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-email-encryption-works-against-the-nsa-2013-6#ixzz2WVdQB6NB

EDWARD SNOWDEN: How To Make Sure The NSA Can't Read Your Email

Father of Edward Snowden urges son not to commit 'treason,' to return home

Read on Fox News >>

Father of Edward Snowden urges son not to commit 'treason,' to return home

Report: Britain spied on world leaders at G-20 summit

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read on worldnews >>

Report: Britain spied on world leaders at G-20 summit

Edward Snowden: Whistleblower or spy?

foxnews

A Communist Party-backed newspaper in China is urging that country's leadership to obtain more information from the former CIA employee who leaked information about the U.S. surveillance programs before fleeing to Hong Kong.

The Global Times newspaper said in an editorial Friday that Edward Snowden should not be sent back to the U.S. because his revelations about secret American surveillance programs concern China's national interest.

The newspaper said that the Chinese government should not only consider Beijing's relations with the United States but also domestic public opinion, which the paper says would be unhappy if Snowden were sent back.

The Global Times said in the editorial, which ran in the paper's Chinese- and English-language editions, that Snowden could offer intelligence that would help China update its understanding of cyberspace and improve its position in negotiations with Washington.

 "Snowden took the initiative to expose the U.S. government's attacks on Hong Kong and the mainland's Internet networks. This concerns China's national interest," the commentary said. "Maybe he has more evidence. The Chinese government should let him speak out and according to whether the information is public, use it as evidence to negotiate with the United States openly or in private."

The paper said that the Chinese government should not only consider Beijing's relations with the United States but also the opinion of its domestic public, which the paper said would be unhappy if Snowden were sent back.

"We have realized the United States' aggressiveness in cyberspace, we have realized that nine Internet companies have assisted the U.S. government in intelligence outsourcing," said the paper known for a nationalist stance. "We have realized their hypocrisy in saying one thing and doing another, and we have realized their ruthlessness in doing what they please with no regard for other people."

"China is a rising power, and it deserves corresponding respect from the United States," it said.

Snowden alleged in an interview with the South China Morning Post newspaper Thursday that the NSA has been monitoring the Chinese University of Hong Kong and public officials and citizens in the city.

Snowden told the paper he believes there have been more than 61,000 NSA hacking operations globally.

The 29-year-old reportedly also told the newspaper his plans for the immediate future, steps he claims the U.S. has taken since he broke his cover in Hong Kong, fears for his family as well as explosive details on U.S. surveillance targets.

On Thursday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chungying said China is a "major victim" of cyberattacks but did not lay blame.

Snowden is behind one of the biggest intelligence leaks in American history. The former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor who worked at the National Security Agency, hopped a flight to Asia on May 20 and has remained on the lam ever since.

The Associated Press reported Friday that the British government issued an alert to airlines around the world, urging them not to allow Snowden to board flights to the United Kingdom.

The alert, dated Monday on a Home Office letterhead, said carriers should deny Snowden boarding because "the individual is highly likely to be refused entry to the UK."

The Associated Press saw a photograph of the document taken Friday at a Thai airport. A British diplomat confirmed that the document was genuine and was sent out to airlines around the world.

In what is likely his final appearance as FBI director before the House Judiciary Committee, Mueller said Thursday that Snowden is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.

In his three hours of testimony, Mueller defended the government's collection of millions of U.S. phone records, emails and other information as vital to the nation's national security.

"Every time that we have a leak like this — and if you follow it up and you look at the intelligence afterwards" — the terrorists "are looking at the ways around it," Mueller said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/14/china-newspaper-says-snowden-could-be-useful-to-china/#ixzz2WE2k1QfP

Edward Snowden: Whistleblower or spy?

Moscow opens door to asylum for Snowden, 'it will be considered'

Fox News

Moscow has opened the door to asylum for American whistleblower Edward Snowden.

There is no official information that the 29-year-old Snowden has applied for asylum, after exposing U.S. surveillance programs that have logged millions of phone calls and the Internet activities of Americans.

However, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday the Communist county would consider such an asylum request.

"If such an appeal is given, it will be considered,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian newspaper Kommersant. “We'll act according to facts."

The comment was reported first by The Guardian.

Snowden, who until Tuesday was a National Security Agency contract worker, has said he is looking for a country in which to seek asylum that has “shared values.”

Snowden fled to Hong Kong after news reports last week about the U.S. date mining. He has been in hiding since appearing in a video Sunday in which he claims to be the source of the leaks.

Snowden’s decision to decamp to Hong Kong offers no guarantee of freedom.

Hong Kong has a relatively solid human rights record and signed an extradition treaty with the United States in 1996, but the island region is now largely under the rule of communist China, notorious for spying on the United States.

“Does he not know (Hong Kong) now belongs to the People’s Republic of China?” asked Steve Bucci, a foreign policy expert with the Heritage Foundation.

Other experts suggest Snowden is trying to take advantage of a recent Hong Kong court decision requiring a review of asylum applications, which also could allow him to stay there while the process remains in limbo.

Simon Young, of the University of Hong Kong’s law center, told the online news agency GlobalPost that everybody is waiting to learn how the Hong Kong government is going to implement the court decision.

"Until that’s the case, you can’t return anyone until the law’s in place," he said.

An extradition process could take months or even years, experts say.

Snowden has reportedly said his best hope for asylum is in Iceland “with its reputation of a champion of Internet freedom.”

To be sure, Iceland has no extradition agreement with the United States, but how and when he would get there remains unclear.

Right now, Snowden’s whereabouts remains uncertain, though he told The Guardian he has been in Hong Kong since May 20.

And the Justice Department has said only that the agency is “in the initial stages” of an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by somebody with authorized access.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/11/moscow-opens-door-to-asylum-for-snowden-it-will-be-considered/#ixzz2VvrEjCBm

Moscow opens door to asylum for Snowden, 'it will be considered'

NSA leaker on the run, whereabouts unknown

NSA leaker on the run, whereabouts unknown

NSA whistle-blower who sought to 'inform the public' in surveillance risks decades in jail

foxnews

 A 29-year-old American who works as contract employee at the National Security Agency is the source of The Guardian's disclosures about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs, the London newspaper reported Sunday.

The source of the bombshell leaks about the U.S. government gathering information on billions of phone calls and Internet activities risks decades in jail for the disclosures if the U.S. can extradite him from Hong Kong, where he says he has taken refuge after saying his sole motive was to “inform the public.”

Edward Snowden, 29, who claims to have worked as a contractor at the National Security Agency and the CIA, allowed The Guardian and The Washington Post to reveal his identity Sunday. Snowden, in a video that appeared on the Guardian’s website, said two NSA surveillance programs are wide open to abuse.

"Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector. Anywhere," Snowden said. "I, sitting at my desk, had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal e-mail."

Snowden said he was a former technical assistant for the CIA and a current employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, which released a statement Sunday confirming he had been a contractor with them in Hawaii for less than three months. Company officials have promised to work with investigators.

Snowden told the Guardian he believes the government could try to charge him with treason under the Espionage Act, but Mark Zaid, a national security attorney who represents whistle-blowers, told The Associated Press that that would require the government to prove he had intent to betray the United States. Snowden has said his “sole motive” was to inform the public and spur debate.

"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them," Snowden told the Guardian.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided to the newspaper, Snowden wrote: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

Snowden told the Post he was not going to hide.

"Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest," he said in the interview published Sunday. Snowden said he would "ask for asylum from any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy."

Snowden is now staying in Hong Kong and seeking asylum outside the United States, possibly in Iceland, The Guardian reports.

If the reports are accurate, Snowden could face many years in prison for releasing classified information if he is successfully extradited from Hong Kong or elsewhere.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on Snowden's disclosure, saying the issue has been referred to the Justice Department.

However, the agency said: "Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law."

"The Department of Justice is in the initial stages of an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by an individual with authorized access," Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitre said in a statement late Sunday. 

New York Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Terrorism and a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said: "If Edward Snowden did in fact leak the NSA data as he claims, the United States government must prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and begin extradition proceedings at the earliest date. The United States must make it clear that no country should be granting this individual asylum. This is a matter of extraordinary consequence to American intelligence."

In a nearly 13-minute video that accompanied The Guardian story Sunday, Snowden says he has no intentions of hiding because he has done nothing wrong.

“When you’re in positions of privileged access … . You recognize some of these things are actual abuses,” Snowden said about his decision to be a whistle-blower. “Over time, you feel compelled to talk about it.”

The Guardian broke the story late Wednesday that the federal government was collecting phone call records from Verizon customers.

The Guardian and the Post followed with a series of reports about the calls being taken from other telecommunications companies and that the NSA and FBI have a Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, that records Internet activities, all part of a post-9/11 effort to thwart terrorism.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Oval Office would not comment on Snowden before Monday.

Washington officials have acknowledged all branches of the federal government — Congress, the White House and federal courts — knew about the collection of data under the Patriot Act.

Still, the leaks have reopened the debate about privacy concerns versus heightened measure to protect against terrorist attacks. They also led the NSA to ask the Justice Department to conduct a criminal investigation.

Fox News confirmed the Obama administration took the first steps Saturday in a criminal investigation when officials filed a “crimes report.”

National Intelligence Director James Clapper has decried the leaks as reckless. And in the past days he has taken the rare step of declassifying some details about them to respond to media reports about counterterrorism techniques employed by the government.

“Disclosing information about the specific methods the government uses to collect communications can obviously give our enemies a ‘playbook’ of how to avoid detection,” Clapper said Saturday.

PRISM allows the federal government to tap directly into the servers of major U.S. Internet companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and AOL, scooping out emails, video chats, instant messages and more to track foreign nationals who are suspected of terrorism or espionage.

The chief executives of Facebook and Google have said their companies were not aware of the data grab.

Officials say the government is not listening to any of the billions of phone calls, only logging the numbers.  

President Obama, Clapper and others also have said the programs are subject to strict supervision of a secret court.

Obama said Friday that the programs have made a difference in tracking terrorists and are not tantamount to "Big Brother." 

The president acknowledged the U.S. government is collecting reams of phone records, including phone numbers and the duration of calls, but said this does not include listening to calls or gathering the names of callers.  

"You can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” he said. “We're going to have to make some choices as a society."

However, the president said he welcomes a debate on that issue. 

The Guardian reported that Snowden was working in an NSA office in Hawaii when he copied the last of the documents he planned to disclose and told supervisors that he needed to be away for a few weeks to receive treatment for epilepsy.

Snowden is quoted as saying he chose Hong Kong because it has a "spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent" and because he believed it was among the spots on the globes that could and would resist the dictates of the U.S. government.

Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the United States that took force in 1998, according to the U.S. State Department website.

"The government could subject him to a 10- or 20-year penalty for each count," with each document leaked considered a separate charge, Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who represents whistle-blowers told the Associated Press.

Snowden is quoted as saying he hopes the publicity of the leaks will provide him some protection.

"I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets," Snowden told the Guardian.

Snowden was said to have worked on IT security for the CIA and by 2007 was stationed with diplomatic cover in Geneva, responsible for maintaining computer network security. That gave him clearance to a range of classified documents, according to the Guardian report.

"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he says. "I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/10/report-nsa-contract-worker-is-surveillance-source/#ixzz2Vqujm8Kz

NSA whistle-blower who sought to 'inform the public' in surveillance risks decades in jail

What we know about NSA leaker Edward Snowden

usnews

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

The 29-year-old computer whiz who says he divulged details about National Security Agency's data-collecting programs has also revealed specifics of his life story, from an upbringing in North Carolina to a top-secret contract in Hawaii.
Speaking from a Hong Kong hotel that he reportedly has since left, Edward Snowden told The Guardian that he had enjoyed a "very comfortable life," but one marked by mounting disillusionment with what he views as government intrusion into the private lives of American citizens.
"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under," he said.
Here's some of what we know about the bespectacled self-proclaimed "spy" who is being called both a traitor and a hero:
Background: Born June 21, 1983, he grew up in Wilmington, N.C., but later moved to Ellicott City, Md., he told The Guardian. His mother, Wendy, is the chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology at the federal court in Baltimore, a court official told NBC News. His father, Lonnie, is a former Coast Guard officer who lives in Pennsylvania, the Allentown Morning Call reported. A neighbor said he has an older sister who is an attorney.
"He was a quiet guy, kept to himself. He always dressed nice, was clean cut. He just reminded me of a brainiac," said neighbor Joyce Kinsey. "I feel terrible for his family." In his interview with The Guardian, Edward Snowden said the only thing he feared from outing himself is the "harmful effects on my family."
Education: He did not complete high school. He told The Guardian that he studied computers at a community college and obtained a general equivalency degree. A spokesman for Anne Arundel Community College confirmed that a student with the same name and birth date took classes there, from 1999 to 2001 and again in 2004 and 2005.
Military service: He spent four months in the Army reserves, from May to September 2004 as a special forces recruit to a 14-week training course, the Army said. "He did not complete any training or receive any awards," an Army statement said. No other details were given, but Snowden told The Guardian he was discharged after breaking his legs in an accident.
Government work: His first job with the National Security Agency was as a security guard, and the next stop was an information-technology job with the CIA, which stationed him in Geneva in 2007, he claimed. He said he left the CIA in 2009 to work for private contractors, including Dell and Booz Allen. Through his job with Booz Allen, he was assigned to NSA offices in Japan and, more recently, Hawaii. Booz Allen said he has been an employee for about three months. He told reporters he made about $200,000 a year.

Anita Hofschneider / AP

A real estate sign stands in front of a home in Waipahu, Hawaii, Sunday, June 9, 2013, where Edward Snowden, source of disclosures about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs, lived with his girlfriend until recently. A Hawaii real estate agent says Snowden and his girlfriend moved out of the home near Honolulu on May 1, leaving nothing behind.

Hawaii: He briefly lived in a 1,559-square-foot rented home on Oahu, where neighbors said he and his girlfriend, who has not been named, kept to themselves. "They just say, 'Hi' and 'Hello' in the morning," Angel Cunanan told NBC station KHNL. "He mentioned that he worked for the government." Local residents said the couple never really unpacked before they moved out May 1, after the owner decided to sell the house, the Associated Press reported.
Exit plan: When he decided to go to Hong Kong to await the fallout from the leaks, Snowden told the NSA that he was taking a leave for treatment of epilepsy, a condition he told The Guardian he was diagnosed with last year after seizures. He said he didn't give his girlfriend a specific reason, just saying he had to go away for a few weeks.
Politics: A public records search shows Snowden was a registered voter but did not declare a political party affiliation. Someone with the same name who lived in the same places and at one point worked for Dell made two $250 donations last year to libertarian-leaning GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Cloak-and-dagger: Snowden self-identifies as a spook. "I've been a spy almost all of my adult life," he told the Washington Post. In his communications with a reporter, he used a code name — "Verax," or truth-teller in Latin. He's worried he's being watched and puts a red hood over his head and laptop when he enters passwords, The Guardian reported.

What we know about NSA leaker Edward Snowden

Snowden's Steps To Protect His Privacy

Business Insider

Brian Jones 

via Shutterstock

Weeks ago, Edward Snowden, a contractor for the National Security Agency, left his home in Hawaii and checked into a hotel in Hong Kong.

The 29-year-old man responsible for one of the more notable intelligence leaks in American history then waited until he became one of the most wanted men in the world.

“We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week,” Snowden told the Guardian. “And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.”

One would imagine that Snowden is intimately familiar with the capabilities of NSA, and what he has gotten himself into. The Guardian details some of the steps he takes to protect his privacy:

• In case of hidden cameras, he drapes a large red hood over his head and computer screen when he enters his passwords.
• He places pillows under the crack of his door to combat eavesdropping.
• He rarely ventures out in public. "I've left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay," Snowden said.

SEE ALSO:  Some Tricks To Keep The Government From Spying On You

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowdens-steps-to-protect-his-privacy-2013-6#ixzz2Vqj2unQ7

Snowden's Steps To Protect His Privacy

Facebook forensics? What the feds can learn from your digital crumbs

NBC News.com

Nidhi Subbaraman/

Bits of you are all over the Internet. If you've signed into Google and searched, saved a file in your Dropbox folder, made a phone call using Skype, or just woken up in the morning and checked your email, you're leaving a trail of digital crumbs. People who have access to this information — companies powering your emails and Web searches, advertisers who are strategically directing ads at you — can build a picture of who you are, what you like, and what you will probably do next. Revelations about government counter-terrorism programs such as PRISM indicate that federal agents and other operatives may use this data, too.

"Google knows what kinds of porn everyone in the world likes," Bruce Schneier, a security and cryptography expert told NBC News. Not only are companies tracking what you are doing, they are correlating it, he said.

Since news of PRISM broke, the leaders of the tech companies have denied knowledge of government access to their information. At Facebook, one of the world's biggest data collectors, Mark Zuckerberg posted a message that read: "When governments ask Facebook for data, we review each request carefully to make sure they always follow the correct processes and all applicable laws, and then only provide the information if is required by law."

But the law already permits quite a bit of digital sniffing — much of it without a warrant.

While authorities need a warrant to access the content of emails stored by companies like Yahoo and Google, they don't need a warrant for IP addresses of the computers used to access accounts, ProPublica notes. The government doesn't need a warrant to request draft emails, data stored in the cloud on services like Dropbox and Google Drive, and emails and texts that are older than 180 days old — investigators can demand them with a subpoena.

And when authorities do get a court order, the amount of available data multiplies. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper clarified in a statement to press Thursday that the government has access not to content of phone calls, but to "telephony metadata." That's a vague term, but at the very least, in includes who you called, from where, and when.

Painting a picture of you
Gather all of these shreds of metadata, apply some algorithms that spot clues in patterns, and you can put together a pretty good idea of who a person is, and what they're up to.

For example, when a group from MIT analyzed location data from cellphones of 1.5 million people in a single country over 15 months, the team could identify individuals simply by knowing where they were on four separate occasions.

When Netflix released anonymous watch histories of 500,000 subscribers as part of a public contest to create an algorithm that predicted what movie a person would like, Arvind Narayanan, a security researcher at Princeton University, and his colleague Vitaly Shmatikov, pinned names to numbers by comparing histories in the anonymized data with comments made by named individuals on IMDB. "In every case, you find two location points, or six to eight movies, or three data points ... it's enough to identify a person," Narayanan told NBC News.

Narayanan is now researching ways to make people harder to identify by their online behavior.

Facebook, as you might imagine, provides a wealth of identifying information. In a study published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences in March this year, a team of data scientists showed that they could work out a person's sexual preferences, political leanings, and a host of other character details from their "likes." In a similar manner, others can work out similar identifying characteristics from "browsing histories, search queries, or purchase histories," they write in their paper.

"Commercial companies, governmental institutions, or even one’s Facebook friends could use software to infer attributes such as intelligence, sexual orientation, or political views that an individual may not have intended to share," they add. "One can imagine situations in which such predictions, even if incorrect, could pose a threat to an individual’s well-being, freedom, or even life."

Snoop tricks
Advertisers already track our lives with astonishing accuracy going off very little information — Target has known when a woman was pregnant even before her family did. And just as advertisers are profiling you to make money, law enforcement and counter-terrorism operatives make use of these clues to hunt for suspects.

In April, the NSA released a document called "Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research." The massive work, 643 pages total, contains loads and loads of tips for hunting information that's publicly available on the Internet. One section, about "Google Hacking" isn't really hacking at all, just fancy tricks for locating accidentally published secrets.

Raytheon's Rapid Information Overlay Technology (or RIOT) software was built to make some of this searching easier. Its government customers use it to compile case files of location data scraped from checkins on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other public social outlets.

President Obama said in a statement on Friday that surveillance programs like PRISM have "helped us prevent terrorist attacks." Still, privacy advocates have consistently pointed to such initiatives as potentially over-reaching.

The key here is that, even without a so-called "back door" into Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft servers (which the companies have vehemently denied), and even without the warrants they need to get specific information about individuals from those companies, the feds — and anyone else — can see an awful lot. And they have you to thank for it. Remember that next time you post to Facebook, upload a picture or comment on an article ... like this one.

Facebook forensics? What the feds can learn from your digital crumbs

Intelligence chief declassifies PRISM details, slams ’reckless disclosures’

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NBC News

By Becky Bratu and Matthew DeLuca

The United States' top intelligence official said he was concerned about recent leaks to the media that revealed some of the country's surveillance activities in a move that  he said could damage U.S. intelligence capabilities. 

"I think we’re very, very concerned about it," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told NBC News' Andrea Mitchell Saturday. "For me, it is literally – not figuratively – literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities." 

In a statement released Saturday, Clapper said media reports contained some inaccuracies that cannot be corrected without revealing additional classified information – something he is not prepared to do. 

“Over the last week we have seen reckless disclosures of intelligence community measures used to keep American safe,” Clapper said in the statement. “In a rush to publish, media outlets have not given the full context – including the extent to which these programs are overseen by all three branches of government – to these effective tools.”

The revelation of two ultra-secret government surveillance programs on Thursday raised outrage among many Americans.

The British newspaper The Guardian published a classified document detailing a program under which a division of telecommunications provider Verizon was ordered to hand over records to the National Security Agency. 

A second program, code-named PRISM, was revealed later in the day, and first reported on by the Washington Post and The Guardian. Under the program, U.S. intelligence agencies have been given access to files maintained by some of the country’s top Internet companies, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple, according to the reports. Those companies denied providing special government access to their systems when contacted by NBC News.

Describing a lot of the reporting on the subject as "hyperbole," Clapper told Mitchell these intelligence programs represent "a key tool for preserving, protecting the nation’s safety and security." 

In a second statement released Saturday, Clapper's office described PRISM as follows: "PRISM is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program. It is an internal government computer system used to facilitate the government's statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

"The United States government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers," the statement continued. 

Clapper said the intelligence community has been "profoundly affected" by the recent leaks, and he expressed concern over the "double-edged sword" of transparency, which could benefit "nefarious" groups. 

According to the statement released by Clapper's office, the country's intelligence collection is credited with numerous accomplishments.

"For example, the intelligence community acquired information on a terrorist organization's strategic planning efforts. Communications collected under Section 702 have yielded intelligence regarding proliferation networks and have directly and significantly contributed to successful operations to impede the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and related technologies," the statement read.

Intelligence chief declassifies PRISM details, slams ’reckless disclosures’

U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

The Washington Post

By Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.
The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

Related stories

What has the government been doing? Is it legal? Does it mean some bureaucrat somewhere has heard all your phone calls? Read on to find out.

An internal presentation on the Silicon Valley operation, intended for senior analysts in the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, described the new tool as the most prolific contributor to the President’s Daily Brief, which cited PRISM data in 1,477 articles last year. According to the briefing slides, obtained by The Washington Post, “NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.

That is a remarkable figure in an agency that measures annual intake in the trillions of communications. It is all the more striking because the NSA, whose lawful mission is foreign intelligence, is reaching deep inside the machinery of American companies that host hundreds of millions of American-held accounts on American soil.

The technology companies, which participate knowingly in PRISM operations, include most of the dominant global players of Silicon Valley. They are listed on a roster that bears their logos in order of entry into the program: “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” PalTalk, although much smaller, has hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.

Dropbox , the cloud storage and synchronization service, is described as “coming soon.”

Government officials declined to comment for this story.

Roots in the ’70s

PRISM is an heir, in one sense, to a history of intelligence alliances with as many as 100 trusted U.S. companies since the 1970s. The NSA calls these Special Source Operations, and PRISM falls under that rubric.

The Silicon Valley operation works alongside a parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, that gathers up “metadata” — address packets, device signatures and the like — as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet. BLARNEY’s top-secret program summary, set down alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun hat, describes it as “an ongoing collection program that leverages IC [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.”

But the PRISM program appears more nearly to resemble the most controversial of the warrantless surveillance orders issued by President George W. Bush after the al-Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its history, in which President Obama presided over “exponential growth” in a program that candidate Obama criticized, shows how fundamentally surveillance law and practice have shifted away from individual suspicion in favor of systematic, mass collection techniques.

Keep reading on 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_1.html

U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

Report: U.S. Weapons System Designs Breached by Chinese Cyber Attacks

By Breitbart News 

According to a report prepared for the Pentagon and the defense industry, US weapons systems have been infiltrated by Chinese hackers.  "More than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat aircraft and ships, according to a previously undisclosed section of a confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science Board."

Gaining access to these systems could not only accelerate the development of Chinese weapon systems, but also cripple our military advantage in the future. The Defense Science Board, an advisory board of civilian and government experts, did not state that the Chinese stole the weapons information and designs. But officials with knowledge of the breaches reported the intrusions were part of a larger campaign by the Chinese against the US defense systems.

A report in January warned that the US and the Pentagon is not prepared to protect against a full scale cyber attack. The Washington Post was given a copy of the confidential report listing all of the weapons systems that were compromised.

The designs included those for the advanced Patriot missile system, known as PAC-3; an Army system for shooting down ballistic missiles, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD; and the Navy’s Aegis ballistic-missile defense system.Also identified in the report are vital combat aircraft and ships, including the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, which is designed to patrol waters close to shore.Also on the list is the most expensive weapons system ever built — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is on track to cost about $1.4 trillion. The 2007 hack of that project was reported previously.

In March of this year, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon gave a speech instructing China to "control it's cyberactivity."  But the US addressed this issue as well in a four hour private meeting a year ago. "The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a closed meeting, said senior U.S. defense and diplomatic officials presented the Chinese with case studies detailing the evidence of major intrusions into U.S. companies, including defense contractors."

The Chinese deny they conduct cyber-espionage. President Obama will meet with President Xi Jinping next month in California and is expected to address the issue.

A senior military official stated  “This is billions of dollars of combat advantage for China. They’ve just saved themselves 25 years of research and development. It’s nuts.”

Report: U.S. Weapons System Designs Breached by Chinese Cyber Attacks

War News Updates: NSA Chief Is In The Center Of A 'Cyber Storm'

War News Updates

An aide (L) takes notes as U.S. General Keith Alexander, director of the National 
Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command, speaks to reporters 
during the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit in Washington,
 May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Stelios Varias

Four-Star General In Eye Of U.S. Cyber Storm -- Reuters

(Reuters) - Depending on your point of view, U.S. General Keith Alexander is either an Army four-star trying to stave off a cyber Pearl Harbor attack, or an overreaching spy chief who wants to eavesdrop on the private emails of every American.

Alexander, 61, has headed the National Security Agency since 2005, making him the longest-serving chief in the history of an intelligence unit so secretive that it was dubbed "No Such Agency." Alexander also runs U.S. Cyber Command, which he helped to create in 2010 to oversee the country's offensive and defensive operations in cyberspace.

The dual role means Alexander has more knowledge about cyber threats than any other U.S. official, since the NSA already protects the most sensitive U.S. data, extracts intelligence from foreign networks and uses wiretaps to track suspected terrorists. But it also puts the general at the center of an intense debate over how much power the government should have to spy on private citizens in the name of protecting national security.

Read more >>

War News Updates: NSA Chief Is In The Center Of A 'Cyber Storm'

Is Privacy Overrated? Cyberattack in the New Digital Age

ForaTv

Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, authors of the book "The New Digital Age," explain why it might be time to have  "the talk" about cyber security, at home, at work, all over the country. 

Is Privacy Overrated? Cyberattack in the New Digital Age

China labels US the ’real hacking empire’ after Pentagon report

behindthewall

chinhdangvu.blogspot.com

By Sui-Lee Wee, Reuters

BEIJING -- China on Wednesday accused the United States of sowing discord between it and its neighbors after the Pentagon said Beijing is using espionage to fuel its military modernization, branding Washington the "real hacking empire.”

The latest salvo came a day after China's foreign ministry dismissed as groundless a Pentagon report that accused China for the first time of trying to break into U.S. defense computer networks.

The Pentagon also cited progress in Beijing's effort to develop advanced-technology stealth aircraft and to build an aircraft carrier fleet to project power further offshore.

The People's Liberation Army Daily called the report a "gross interference in China's internal affairs.”

"Promoting the ‘China military threat theory’ can sow discord between China and other countries, especially its relationship with its neighboring countries, to contain China and profit from it," the newspaper said in a commentary that was carried on China's Defense Ministry website.

The United States is "trumpeting China's military threat to promote its domestic interests groups and arms dealers,” the newspaper said, adding that it expects "U.S. arms manufacturers are gearing up to start counting their money.”

The remarks in the newspaper underscore the escalating mistrust between China and the United States over hacking, now a top point of contention between Washington and Beijing.

A U.S. computer security company, Mandiant, said in February a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks that targeted the United States and stole data from more than 100 companies.

That set off a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

China has said repeatedly that it does not condone hacking and is the victim of hacking attacks -- most of which it says come from the United States.

"As we all know, the United States is the real 'hacking empire' and has an extensive espionage network," the People's Daily, a newspaper regarded as a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, said in a commentary.

"In recent years, the United States has continued to strengthen its network tools for political subversion against other countries,” the article said.

"Cyber weapons are more frightening than nuclear weapons," the People's Daily said. "To establish military hegemony on the Internet by repeatedly smearing other countries is a dangerous and wrong path to take and will ultimately end up in shooting themselves in the foot."

China labels US the ’real hacking empire’ after Pentagon report

White House threatens cybersecurity veto

Security Clearance

By Pam Benson

www.wina.com

The White House is threatening to veto a House cybersecurity bill unless changes are made to further safeguard privacy and civil liberties, and limit private-sector liability protections.
Last week, the House Intelligence Committee approved and sent to the full House proposed legislation that would enhance data sharing between the government and private industry to help protect computer networks from cyber attacks.
The committee amended the bill after consulting with the White House during its drafting, but the Obama administration is still not satisfied with some of its provisions.
"The administration still seeks additional improvements and if the bill, as currently crafted, were presented to the president, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto" it, the White House budget office said in a statement on Tuesday.

In particular, the administration wants to require private companies to "take reasonable steps" to remove personal data not relevant to a cyber threat when they share information with the government.
As it stands now, the bill only mandates the government take steps to minimize the collection and retention of personal information such as addresses and e-mail.
The White House also wants the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate information-sharing from industry to government, making clear that a civilian agency would be in charge of the process.
Another point of contention is the extent of liability protection provided to private industry.
The White House supports the efforts to remove legal barriers that could inhibit information sharing by companies, but the OMB statement said, "the law should not immunize a failure to take reasonable measures, such as the sharing of information, to prevent harm when and if the entity knows that such inaction will cause damage or otherwise injure or endanger other entities or individuals."
The full House is expected to debate and vote on the measure this week.
Two Democratic representatives who voted against the committee bill, Adam Schiff of California and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, plan to introduce amendments that could satisfy the administration's concerns.

White House threatens cybersecurity veto

FBI sued over facial-recognition technology

wnd

Bob Unruh

A team of privacy advocates and experts is launching a lawsuit against the FBI for refusing to provide information to the public about its new Next Generation Identification system, which the federal agency says is in demand for its biometric database of Americans.

The lawsuit filed against the FBI in Washington by the Electronic Privacy Information Center is asking for a court order that information about the program’s contracts with private companies and its technical specifications be made available.

EPIC said that the NGI system upon completion “will be the largest biometric database in the world” and will include files of fingerprints, DNA profiles, iris scans, palm prints, voice identification profiles, photographs and other identifying information already collected by states, counties and even schools.

“The FBI will use facial recognition to match images in the database against facial images obtained from CCTV and elsewhere,” the organization said, noting there already are an estimated 30 million spy cameras across the United States.

The complaint explains that the FBI announced in 2009 the NGI system was being created to record, analyze and use biometrics of U.S. citizens – whether they know that their details have been recorded or not.

EPIC followed up shortly later with Freedom of Information Act requests for details about the program’s contracts with private companies. The group wanted to know who would get access to Americans’ biometrics and why.

The database was expected to include millions of photographs, fingerprints, voiceprints and other identifiers of people who are not criminals and are not even suspects in crimes, EPIC said. In fact, they are individuals who probably “are unaware that their images and biometric identifiers were captured.”

Some law enforcement officers now are using handheld devices that allow them to “scan irises and faces of individuals and match them against biometric databases.”

Also, some “school districts now are requiring children to provide biometric identifiers, such as palm prints.”

The complaint said the danger was made clear when a private company was found trying to sell its biometric database of American consumers after its parent company, Verified Identity Pass, collapsed into bankruptcy,

“Personally identifiable information could be lost or misused as a result” of the new program, the complaint said.

Among the private companies thought to be involved are Lockheed Martin, IBM, Accenture, BAE Systems Information Technology, Global Science & Technology, Innovative Management and Technology Services and Platinum Solutions.

States already thought to be providing biometric details to the NGI include Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Although the FBI admitted that it had more than 7,300 pages of documentation that responded to the requests, EPIC has yet to see any, the complaint alleged.

The FBI explained that it launched the biometric database of Americans because of “customer requirements.”

The FBI said it is expected to replace its existing fingerprint ID system and expand the agency’s capabilities into “multimodal functionality.”

“The NGI Program Office mission is to reduce terrorist and criminal activities by improving and expanding biometric identification and criminal history information services through research, evaluation, and implementation of advanced technology,” the FBI explained.

The system specifically calls for iris records and search capabilities, palm prints, facial recognition capabilities and other components of a “unimodel” system.

“The framework will be expandable, scalable, and flexible to accommodate new technologies and biometric standards, and will be interoperable with existing systems. Once developed and implemented, the NGI initiatives and multimodal functionality will promote a high level of information sharing, support interoperability, and provide a foundation for using multiple biometrics for positive identification,” the FBI said.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/fbi-sued-over-facial-recognition-technology/#Uyg1kfJeRToEuoXv.99

FBI sued over facial-recognition technology

«Facebook Home destruye cualquier noción de privacidad»

microsiervos

mexico.cnn.com

Om Malik, Why Facebook Home bothers me: It destroys any notion of privacy,

El GPS del teléfono puede enviar información constante a los servidores de Facebook [«infractor reincidente en cuestiones de privacidad»], indicando tu paradero en todo momento.

De modo que si tu teléfono no se mueve de un mismo lugar entre las 22h y las 6h durante, digamos, una semana, Facebook puede deducir que esa ubicación es tu hogar. Facebook será capaz de localizar en un mapa dónde está tu casa aunque nunca hayas indicado tu dirección personal en Facebook.

Así Facebook puede comenzar a construir un perfil de ti mejor y más completo. Puede correlacionar todas tus relaciones, las tiendas en las que compras, los restaurantes en los que comes y otros muchos datos. El acelerómetro del teléfono le dirá a Facebook si estás caminando, corriendo o conduciendo.

El problema es que Facebook va a utilizar todos esos datos —no para mejorar tu vida— sino para mejorar sus campañas de publicidad.

«Facebook Home destruye cualquier noción de privacidad»

Cyberattack on Florida election is first known case in US, experts say

Tim Chapman / Miami Herald

About 2,000 rejected absentee ballots at Miami-Dade Elections Department, mostly for lack of signatures or review of signatures from the last election.

By Gil Aegerter
Staff Writer, NBC News

An attempt to illegally obtain absentee ballots in Florida last year is the first known case in the U.S. of a cyberattack against an online election system, according to computer scientists and lawyers working to safeguard voting security.

The case involved more than 2,500 “phantom requests” for absentee ballots, apparently sent to the Miami-Dade County elections website using a computer program, according to a grand jury report on problems in the Aug. 14 primary election. It is not clear whether the bogus requests were an attempt to influence a specific race, test the system or simply interfere with the voting. Because of the enormous number of requests – and the fact that most were sent from a small number of computer IP addresses in Ireland, England, India and other overseas locations – software used by the county flagged them and elections workers rejected them.

Computer experts say the case exposes the danger of putting states’ voting systems online – whether that’s allowing voters to register or actually vote.

“It’s the first documented attack I know of on an online U.S. election-related system that’s not (involving) a mock election,” said David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who is on the board of directors of the Verified Voting Foundation and the California Voter Foundation.

Other experts contacted by NBC News agreed that the attempt to obtain the ballots is the first known case of a cyberattack on voting, though they noted that there are so many local elections systems in use that it's possible that a similar attempt has gone unnoticed.

There have been allegations of election system hacking before in the U.S., but investigations of irregularities have found only software glitches, voting machine failures, voter error or inconclusive evidence. Where there has been evidence of a computer security breach -- such as a 2006 incident in Sarasota, Fla., in which  a computer worm that had been around for years raised havoc with the county elections voter database -- it was unclear whether the worm's appearance was timed to interfere with the election.

In any case, experts say they’ve been warning about this sort of attack for years.

“This has been in the cards, it’s been foreseeable,” said law Professor Candice Hoke, founding director of the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University.

The primary election in Miami-Dade County in August 2012 involved state and local races along with U.S. Senate and congressional contests (see a sample ballot here). The Miami Herald, which first reported the irregularities, said the fraudulent requests for ballots targeted Democratic voters in the 26th Congressional District and Republicans in Florida House districts 103 and 112. None of the races’ outcomes could have been altered by that number of phantom ballots, the Herald said.

Overseas “anonymizers” -- proxy servers that make Internet activity untraceable -- kept the originating computers’ location secret and prevented law enforcement from figuring out who was responsible, according to the grand jury report, issued in December. The state attorney’s office closed the case in January without identifying a suspect.

Read the Miami-Dade County grand jury report (PDF) >>

Keep reading on openchannel >>

Cyberattack on Florida election is first known case in US, experts say